


Give Hope

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate - Colors, Soulmate AU, shulaz, uliro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 22:33:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: Shiro is born able to see color, but he knows the path in his life has aligned with his soulmate’s when he wakes up to a black and white world the day the Kerberos launch is announced. When he wakes over a year later in Keith’s desert shack, the color has returned, and he has no memory of how it happened or who his soulmate could be.A different kind of soulmate AU, the same Uliro we love.





	Give Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ErinNovelist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/gifts).



> This is a prize prompt fill for one of the winners to my 250 milestone follower giveaway. Soulmate AU Uliro was requested, and even though I've never written a single soulmate AU, I wanted to deliver. This is one of my favorite of the soulmate tropes, with a dash of Aurum Logic built in. Hope you enjoy!

_ “So. Kerberos,” Keith led in, his hands shoved into his pockets. He was trying to sound casual, but it was pretty clear the news had a bittersweet feel to it. _

_ “Yeah.” Shiro drew himself out of his reeling thoughts, glad for Keith’s solid presence beside him as they headed to the lecture hall. The news that he would be piloting for the Kerberos had been announced early that morning, and that was daunting enough. But there was more on his mind than just the excitement of getting out into space – and that was saying something.  _

_ Shiro turned his head to look at Keith, narrowing his eyes. Everything about the vibrant, wild cadet he’d taken under his wing seemed more subdued. In fact, everything did, now that he thought about it. But it was still jarring to see Keith now, like an old photograph. His mouth was dry again, and anything he would have said in follow-up was swept back. _

_ Keith grabbed his arm, and once more, Shiro tumbled out of his own headspace. “Shiro.” His voice was stern. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you’d be happy.” _

_ “I am happy, Keith. This is probably the best day of my life, but…” _

_ “But what? Did Iverson say something to you?” The crease of his brow suggested he’d have a hot-headed response depending on Shiro’s answer. _

_ “No, really. It’s all right, I just…” He stepped out of the main stream of the hallway traffic, letting Keith’s firm hold on his arm drag him along as well. When they were out of the flow, he bowed his head down, taking a deep breath. “I woke up and…everything was grey.” _

_ Keith opened his mouth, closed it again, thinking. Then he understood. “What?” He must have seen something stricken on Shiro’s face because he softened it with an awkward smile. He’d learned that expression from Shiro, who’d tried constantly to tell him smiling wouldn’t break his face. “Well, you are going to be stuck on that ship with Matt Holt…” _

_ “And his father!” Shiro shot back incredulously, though the corners of his mouth had turned upward. “Besides, if my ‘soulmate’—“ he used air quotes accompanied by an eyeroll “—really was going to be Matt ‘ice princess’ Holt, I would have known about it long before now.” _

_ “How else do you explain it?” _

_ “I wish I knew,” Shiro sighed, then shrugged, smile softening. “Maybe there’ll be someone waiting for me when it’s time to go home.” _

/

Everything is different.

The smells, the sensations, the lack of sound when he’s been accustomed to nonstop noise. It’s all wrong, too comfortable, too safe – that means it must be a trap. He’s gotta --! 

Shiro jerks upright in bed, startling whoever or whatever had been perched next to him. His eyes try to adjust, but it never happens as fast it should. Between the static low lights of the alien ships and his goddamned color-blindness, he is always at a disadvantage. He’s really damn tired of making up for things that have been taken from him. Shiro’s hands ball into fists, and he’s ready whatever’s snuck up on him. To his horror, the creature is humanoid, raising hands in a universal gesture to wait, and Shiro’s heart finds its way into his throat.

“M-Matt…?”

“Shiro, it’s me. Keith.”

For a split second, Shiro’s world shatters into a million pieces. To think that he’d assumed Keith would be safe all the way back on Earth. It means that he’s ultimately failed everyone – Sam, Matt, his entire planet – and the Galra had stolen even more from him. 

“You’re safe.” Keith’s words attempt to pierce the pounding terror ringing in Shiro’s ears. “You’re home. Just…take a deep breath. I’m gonna turn on a light.”

It takes more than just one breath for him to come to his senses, but by the time he has, light has filled the room, illuminating Keith in his favorite red jacket, the tiny enclosure of a simple bedroom and – 

Red jacket.

Shiro blinks furiously, as if somehow this illusion of color and safety would vanish. He’s scared he’s hallucinating, or worse, the hooded Galra have figured out how to completely infiltrate the world of his mind and heart. It’s worse than dying in the arena, a violation so complete as to trick him with Keith as well as color. He drops his face into his hands to try and collect himself, but the sharp contrast of both metal and flesh has him jerking back upright again. When he looks over at Keith, his friend is frozen and his expression is both wary and anguished.

Shiro has to pull himself together, and it’s easier said than done.

“Keith,” he says quietly. It’s all he can manage, jaw slack while he tries to figure out just what he should be saying or thinking.

It’s practically an invitation. Keith takes a hesitant step forward. Then another. “It’s me, Shiro. No one here is gonna hurt you.” Of that, he sounds very sure. 

“This...this isn’t the Garrison.”

Keith’s short bark of laughter is an accident, self-deprecating. “It’s not. You’re in my...house. Besides, probably better that this isn’t the Garrison, all things considered.”

So much of Shiro’s memory is cloudy, but he can clearly remember that no one had wanted to listen to him about...about… Something’s coming. There’s something he needs to find… “Yeah.” Later, he’ll ask about why Keith isn’t at the Garrison and what’s been happening since he left for Kerberos, but right now, he can’t think past the vibrant red of Keith’s jacket. Now that his eyes have had a chance to adjust to the light, he can tell the the blanket across his lap is blue, there is a neatly folded pile of assorted clothing and a towel across the way, and the lamp at the bedside sheds a soft yellow glow on everything. And for once, it’s all starting to feel real. He’s dreamed of all of this in various scattered visions of going home, seeing familiar faces, knowing what color is again. Who or what had touched him? He can’t remember...much of anything at all now, really, and grasping for it just seems to make any sort of recollection withdraw further from his mind. He has to be patient. Patience yields focus. Shiro huffs out a frustrated sound, then looks up at Keith again. “Sorry, Keith, I just… I need some air. Can we step outside?”

Keith gives him some space at first, and when Shiro steps out into the desert, the first bands of color are bringing dawn to the horizon. God, when is the last time he’s seen a sunrise? There’s a bittersweet beauty to it, and all he can do is watch. His mind tumbles over and over trying to find something he can use to figure out all of these gaps, tell him who he’s become. The alien prosthetic arm certainly isn’t telling him anything, and he feels like he should be able to pull on who he was before he left for Kerberos. Shiro feels lost, like half a person. And the knowledge that someone had touched him --  _ someone had brought color to him out there _ \-- makes him dizzy with hope, with no small amount of terror. 

A hand touches his shoulder, and to his credit, Shiro only flinches slightly. Keith doesn’t withdraw.

“It’s good to have you back,” he says.

Shiro knows the answer to this. He has his best friend near again, his lips try to smile. “It’s good to be back.”

/

Ulaz steps out of the scanning chamber and heads over to the control panel. He presses his palm against the symbol to unlock the report and a screen popps up in front of him. His eyes narrow as the characters arrange themselves before him..

_ Status - Healthy _

_ Moderate to increased heart rate _

_ Scan suggests intermittent sleep schedule and disruption to normal behaviors. _

"Of course," he mutters to no one in particular and swipes his hand in a dismissive motion. The screen vanishes, and he turns away. This is his fourth scan since his return to the Thaldycon base, and just like the other times he'd done it, he expects something more...out of place. It’ entirely possible that he is still be recovering from the force of the explosion on the Hub or reeling from the fact that his mission was actually successful. It hadn't gone off completely without a hitch, but it had done well enough to get the Champion out of Zarkon's hands and back to Earth where he belonged. Where the Blue Lion slept. Now, it’s just a waiting game. He explains away his anxious heart rate to the tension associated with the thought that he might never know if he actually saved the Champion or if something had gone wrong once the situation was out of his hands. The thought keeps him on edge more often than he cares to admit. He supposes if he starts hearing reports of Voltron, a bedtime tale come to life, then he's managed to do that much. It’s even understandable that his sleepless hours happen whenever his thoughts stray to Shiro.

It still doesn’t make any sense.

He had known about the Champion and the leadership's plans to break him free for quite some time before he actually executed. It had been long enough to see the battles, to get to know Shiro from a distance. It had been enough to learn what his real name is in a time and place where no one else cared to use it. But something feels changed, different, after freeing him from the druids. That something dogs his waking hours and even chases him into the sleeping ones, making those necessary resting times rather remarkably not restful. It’s strange to him, the way that his insides wind up tight as if he’s in anguish, how it sometimes becomes hard to breathe at the thought of how lost Shiro's eyes had been in those last moments they were together. He lays in his tiny nest on the base and wonders if he will ever get to see the Champion again -- if he will see Voltron or freedom from Zarkon's tyranny. It had been so long.

Ulaz misses Shiro as if he's known him for more than the gruesome time they'd spent together. He loaths the things his hands have done, and a part of him asks in a whisper if he can be forgiven. It’s the strangest thing Ulaz has ever encountered, and the fact that he’s the source of these conflicting emotions boggles him even further.

For the first time on his solitary mission, Ulaz is lonely.

/

Shiro keeps to himself as much as possible on the course to the coordinates in found his arm. Now, more than ever, he’s convinced he knows the source of all the color in his world.

_ I am Ulaz _ .

Ever since waking up from that dream, he’s rolled the name over in his head, thinks about it ceaselessly. In the rare occasions he’s alone, he whispers the name, gets the feel of it on his tongue. That has to be it. He hadn’t seen colors before that procedure, and it hadn't been his first time with the druids. Okay, so maybe there’s a chance it had been one of the other lackeys that had flocked around Ulaz before he'd been put under, but that doesn’t feel right to him.  _ As a fighter and a leader, you give hope. _

Maybe he’ll meet Ulaz when they arrive at the base. Maybe then, he can tell Ulaz just what had been given to him.

Shiro smiles.

/

"What are you thinking about, Shiro?"

Ulaz's voice has the faint, echoing quality it's had since they discovered one another in this place. It reminds him of the time he's spent with the Black Lion, but it's different somehow. As if the place that Ulaz had gone to save his life is somehow a place that Black could reach, and in that most painful moment of the final battle against Zarkon, she'd known who Shiro's soul had reached for. Of course she had known.

"I'm thinking about how it began," Shiro replied, looking down at his arm. There is still no small amount of residual negativity he associates with that prosthetic, but he also knows its source now. That makes it both better and yet worse. He and Ulaz have a lot to sort out, and he knows it. Some part of him had always known that just because he had known a soulmate existed for him hadn't meant that coming together would be easy. It would seem their bond would be harder than most, but Shiro accepts the challenge. In spite of all he's been through, he can't help but hope it will be worth all the pain he's endured to have his soulmate with him. Especially after he thought he'd lost him, after everything had been in such a state of flux and doubt.

"I am sorry to have become a burden on you, Shiro."

Shiro tilts his head. Ulaz still doesn't quite understand the concept of soulmates, and Shiro has never been able to explain the phenomenon at the best of times. "You're not a burden, Ulaz. It's...we're going to work this out. You said...you said you wanted to try, right?"

"I do. I have not felt anything like this for another. You are the first."

"I like hearing that." That Shiro can be a first anything anymore, after being so broken and used is something he needs more than he thought possible. "We'll figure it out. Just like we'll...figure out how to get out of here."

Ulaz hesitantly leans in and touches his forehead to Shiro's temple. Physical contact is still something they're getting used to. The way Shiro leans into it tells them both that the craving is there, the mark of being soulmates burns at the core of them both, no matter that they feel it differently. Shiro's gaze shifts over, taking in the pale purple-white of Ulaz's features, his sharp yellow eyes, the glittering horizon of the vast nothingness around them and the colors are beautiful. Ulaz brought him these colors, brought him many things he already knows he will learn to love. Until they are free of this place, until they learn how to balance out all that they've been through, it will be enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me about Uliro and Voltron on [tumblr](http://paladinpuppypile.tumblr.com)!


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